


French War Camp, 1 February 1636

by Anima Nightmate (faithhope)



Series: All For One and, well, you know the rest... [16]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Angst, Canon Era, Correspondence, Embedded Images, Franco-Spanish War, Gen, Overthinking, War, Wartime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-07-16 01:16:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16075328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithhope/pseuds/Anima%20Nightmate
Summary: Dear Madame,I regret to inform you that…*Another installment in the long series of wartime correspondence (and other pieces based around the black box that is the Musketeers during the Spanish War).





	French War Camp, 1 February 1636

**Author's Note:**

> Embedded letter images will have a text version in the end notes.
> 
> If the images are too small, please let me know and I'll try to fix.

 

That’s too formal, surely.

 

How do you say it? How do you put it into words? This most grievous wound came in the service of our country; any money we offer you will be a pittance that cannot replace.

That can’t.

He takes two deep breaths. It doesn’t need to be perfect. Sketch something out and amend it before. Before you send.

 

Sending it will make it real. Having the clerks add it to their records will make it real. Having the stamp and seal will make it real.

God-damn it.

He wipes his eyes.

 

“What’re you doing?” Porthos has ducked into the tent they share.

“Writing a letter.”

“To who…?” He peers over his shoulder. “Oh.” He looks at him for a long spell.

Athos finally turns his head towards him, if not his eyes. “What?”

“That’s not your job.”

“It’s more my job than counting chickens,” he tells him mildly, gaze still hovering a little west of his.

“It’s still not your job.” The big man’s voice is soft, sympathetic.

“If not mine, who else’s? She should get something anonymous? Just an official piece of…” He leans his forehead into his palm, eyes closed.

“You’re knackered. You need to give yourself a break.”

“That doesn’t…”

“Have you even washed since?”

“No.”

“Eaten?”

“Porthos…”

“You need a drink.”

That brings his head up. “I _really_ don’t!”

“Of water, at least.”

“Damn it, Porthos!”

“He’d say the same.”

The air clangs heavy between them. He can see Porthos twitching to reach out and hold him, keeping back from respect and compassion combined. Everything in him quivers to be held, simple, friends and comrades.

He can’t. Not yet. Not until.

“That’s not… That.” He sighs, short and hard, turns his eyes down, dragged by the full, blank page, stares at it for an endless time.

A tankard of probably clean water clunks onto the desk by his right hand. He stares at it, sees a filthy, shaking, blood-stained hand reach for it, realises that he should, at least, wash his hands before he writes the final letter, as the much-scored leaf is already smeared with the various nefarious substances, many of them scorched, that decorate his flesh.

How quickly he’s become used to this. He feels like he can barely remember what it was to be someone who cleaned his nails with such punctilio. He sniffs.

He mutters, wide-eyed, brow lowered.

“What was that?”

“ _I said:_ ” he repeats, louder, a little slower, “I stink.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

“In a world of sorrow, you are a true balm, my friend.”

Porthos makes a small, light, voiceless sound, and he realises that, just for a moment, he has said something that would more likely fall from Aramis’s lips and he curses himself all over again.

We are all made of pieces of each other, he thinks. We are no one of us man alone.

He can’t even apologise for prodding that wound. That would means Porthos acknowledging its existence, to which they’ve learned all too well that he is resistant to the point of a strange, cold rage that no-one enjoys.

He thinks he knows how that feels, for a man to want to be a stone; always steers the conversation elsewhere when he can, thinks the rest of the regiment know, now, never to mention their finest marksman’s absence, at least in Porthos’s presence.

He closes his eyes, breathes deep, reaches for the cup and lifts it in silent, mildly ironic homage to absent friends before drinking it off like medicine.

He pushes himself upright and goes over to the ewer and basin, strips his half-armour off, lathers up, and washes hands, forearms, face, and neck, feeling, not better, but fresher at least. He dumps the foul water outside.

Ten minutes later he is still staring at the piece of paper, dried quill in his hand.

“Still stuck?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve heard tell,” he says, slowly, “that if there’s something you’re finding difficult to write, you should write something else, something you find easier, then come back to it.”

There’s only one person of their acquaintance who would have offered such advice that Porthos would have retained.

“That’s seems sound,” he says, courteously, “maybe I’ll do that.”

Porthos grunts, goes back to the rhythmic task of waxing armour.

He cleans and sharpens the quill, draws a fresh piece of parchment to him, dips, smiles, and starts. In the space of eighteen lines he finds peace, and a way to share hope.

**Author's Note:**

> #### Text of Athos’s first attempt
> 
> Dear Madame,  
>  ~~I regret to inform you that your husb~~
> 
> #### Text of Athos’s second attempt
> 
> Dear Madame,  
>  ~~Today your husband fought bravely, with honour, and saved~~
> 
> #### Text of Athos’s third attempt
> 
> Dear Madame,  
>  ~~It is with the deepest sorrow and regret that I send you this. Your hus~~
> 
> #### Text of Athos’s fourth attempt
> 
> Dear Madame,  
>  ~~Today he~~  
>  ~~I have to tell you~~  
>  ~~I wish~~  
>  [multiple, heavy horizontal lines]


End file.
